This paper studies how dierent unionisation structures aect rm productivity, rmperformance, and consumer welfare in a monopolistic competition model with heterogeneousrms and free entry. While centralised bargaining induces tougher selection among hetero-geneous producers and thus increases...

Woman surage led to the greatest enfranchisement in the history of the United States.Before World War I, however, surage states remained almost exclusively conned to theAmerican West. The reasons for this pioneering role of the West are still unclear. Studyingthe timing of woman surage adoption...

This paper studies how national sentiment in the form of either a perception or a loyaltybias of bettors may affect pricing patterns on national wagering markets for international sportevents. We show theoretically that both biases can be profitably exploited by bookmakers byway of price...

We investigate the matching algorithm used by the German central clearinghouse for university admissions (ZVS) in medicine and related subjects. This mechanism consists of three procedures based on final grades from school (“Abiturbestenverfahren”, “Auswahlverfahren der Hochschulen”) and on...

We analyze the effect of outsourcing on union wages in a simple two-stage game between a firm and a union. In contrast to public perception the ease with which the firm can outsource parts of their production does not necessarily reduce the wage set by the union. Even in the simple model...

In this paper, we provide first empirical evidence on the effect of outsourcing on union wages using linked employer-employee data for Germany. We find that low skilled workers experience a decline in the union wage premium when working in industries with high outsourcing intensities. The...

The interaction between trade liberalisation, product and process innovation, and relative skill demand is analysed in a model of international oligopoly. Lower trading barriers increase the degree of foreign competition. The competing enterprises respond by investing more aggressively in...

We test the often-cited hypothesis that high levels of child labour attract foreigninvestors. Using panel data we show the overall effect, which child labour has on foreign direct investment (FDI), to be a (small) negative one. We find strong evidence for the theoretical prediction that child...

Using two data sets derived from German administrative data, including a linkedemployer-employee data set, we investigate the cyclicality of worker and job flows.The analysis stresses the importance of two-sided labour market heterogeneity inthis context, taking into account both observed and...

The secular rise of European unemployment since the 1960s is hard to explain without reference to structural change. This is especially true in Germany, where industrial employment has declined by more than 30% and service sector employment has more than doubled over the past three decades....